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In JAVA
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Sun Microsystems slashes jobs in survival fight
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081114/sun_microsystems_layoffs.html?.v=22
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The economic downturn might be pushing Sun Microsystems Inc., one of the storied names in computing, to the brink of extinction.
The company's servers and software helped stimulate the Internet boom, and its engineering acumen is revered. But Sun never fully recovered from the previous financial crisis -- the dot-com meltdown -- and it has been steamrolled by big shifts in the way businesses buy their back-end computers.
Now Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun plans to slash up to 6,000 jobs, or 18 percent of its global work force, as it scrambles to cut costs to offset a devastating slump in sales of its high-end servers. Sales of those machines fell 27 percent in the latest quarter as banks and other big customers went under or couldn't get loans to buy the servers.
Sun management is swimming upstream against some pretty harsh press.
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINN0641505520081111?rpc=44
Sun Micro under pressure to sell, but buyers wary
Last month, investment firm Southeastern Asset Management disclosed that it had become Sun's top investor with a fifth of its shares, and said it might go around the technology company's board to talk to "third parties" about alternatives.
Other investors like private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co [KKR.UL] may also support a sale to recover their money. KKR holds a seat on Sun's board and had to write down the value of its $700 million debt investment in the company.
"I have not seen a convincing strategy laid out by management," said Shebly Seyrafi, an analyst with Calyon Securities, adding that Sun may be pressured to split up the company if management failed to turn around the business.
[..]
One business that Sun could sell fairly easily is StorageTek, a data storage business that it bought in 2005 for $4.1 billion. Bankers estimated it to be worth $750 million to $1 billion today.
[..]
Despite the fire-sale prices that bankers are citing for Sun's assets, Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry warned would-be buyers to think twice.
"If you buy this company you are just going to buy baggage," he said. "The cost structure is through the roof. The product road map is nonexistent and customers are leaving in droves. When you see these three things, only a dumb company would think of buying Sun." (Reporting by Anupreeta Das and Jim Finkle, Editing by Tiffany Wu, Richard Chang)
Ouch!
Two points I'd like to make Intel fanboy.
Name calling is a violation of ihub TOS.
First, Sun sells Intel based servers so clearly, they are excited as you are about Intels upcoming processors. Sun's Xeon based servers are hard to beat!
ROFL. Sun sells less than $200m of x86 based servers per
quarter, a tiny sliver of the $7B per quarter x86 market.
Once Sun grew x86 sales quickly but this has stalled and
Sun is far, far back of HP, Dell, and IBM. So in the real
world buyers disagree strongly with your assessment of
the competitiveness of Sun's x86 products.
Secondly, you are comparing future Intel CPUs to current, shipping Sun CMT T-Series servers.
Nehalem will be officially released in nine days. No doubt
you think Sun will redesign/shrink its Niagara 2 processor
and release it in a new single socket box before then.
However in the real world Sun has one of the least comp-
etent and most schedule slip prone MPU teams left in the
business. And that is before the cost cutting and layoffs
that are clearly in the cards.
Today, the T5440 can't be beat on performance or price/performance by any other 4 x socket server and outperforms many 8 x socket servers even Power6 servers from IBM costing 4-5x more!
Only on low ILP, high MLP, finely threaded homogenous
throughput workloads. Sun's idiot-convention-on-a-chip
based processors and systems cannot be considered as
general purpose servers like Power, IPF, x86, or even
Fujitsu SPARC64 VII based systems. Most real usage
is performance constrained by serialized code sections
or entire applications. Ever heard of Amdahl's law? In
such cases Sun's Niagara family choke badly. A single
thread on a T2 has less than 1/12th the performance
of a single thread on a Core i7.
Sun's declining overall SPARC sales over the past few
years shows that growing niche sales, even as quickly
as Sun has grown Tx sales, can't make up for declining
main stream market sales. Given how fast Intel x86 is
evolving it remains to be seen how long Sun can keep
even its niche CMT SPARC sales growing.
Two points I'd like to make Intel fanboy.
First, Sun sells Intel based servers so clearly, they are excited as you are about Intels upcoming processors. Sun's Xeon based servers are hard to beat!
Secondly, you are comparing future Intel CPUs to current, shipping Sun CMT T-Series servers. Until Intel delivers their new processor and Sun & others ship servers based on it, the jury is out on who is faster and better price performance.
Plus, when will Intel ship 4 x socket servers based on i7-in 6-8 months? And how will it compare to Sun's recently launched and shipping T5440.
Today, the T5440 can't be beat on performance or price/performance by any other 4 x socket server and outperforms many 8 x socket servers even Power6 servers from IBM costing 4-5x more!
If you dont believe me, just check out here!
http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=11979&cid=
I wonder how long Sun's Niagara based SPARC sales will
keep growing after its legs are cut out from under it.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/11/03/fastest-desktop-world-intel
The Fi7EPOWER MLK1610 managed to score 130 in SPEC’s peak integer rate test, quite literally blasting Sun’s 8-core UltraSPARC system - which managed a score of 85.5 – out of the water.
T2 @1.4 GHz, 8 cores, 63 threads - 85.5 SPECint_rate2006
i7 @3.2 GHz, 4 cores, 8 threads - 130?
The QX9770 gets 80.5 SPECint_rate2006 so 130 is a 61%
gain. The 130 figure is actually plausible given how bandwidth
hungry the SPEC rate 2006 benchmarks are and the fact that
Intel has stated SMT gives Nehalem a 15% boost on SPECint
rate2006.
IIRC a Sun T2 box starts at around $10k. An i7 965 box from
a first tier OEM will likely run under $3k.
So 52% higher throughput and about 12X higher performance
per thread for a fraction of the price? Say goodnight Jonathan!
SPARC sales and gross margins are dropping like a stone and
Poney tail thinks its just a matter of getting MySQL users to buy
Sun's overpriced and underpowered hardware.
If he doesn't have the cajones to seriously cut costs then Sun's
BOD needs to replace him with a CEO who does.
http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/earnings_releases/Q109_SLD.pdf
Very sad here......needs
a savior now.....hmmmm
Not the best time to be asking
for that.....IMO
Hawk
S.E.C. Concedes Oversight Flaws Fueled Collapse
By STEPHEN LABATON
Published: September 26, 2008
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, a longtime proponent of deregulation, acknowledged on Friday that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis, and he abruptly shut the program down.
Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg News
Christopher Cox, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, testifying before the Senate banking panel on Tuesday.
Also Friday, the S.E.C.’s inspector general released a report strongly criticizing the agency’s performance in monitoring Bear Stearns before it collapsed in March. Christopher Cox, the commission chairman, said he agreed that the oversight program was “fundamentally flawed from the beginning.”
“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work,” he said in a statement. The program “was fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion diminished the perceived mandate” of the program, and “weakened its effectiveness,” he added.
Mr. Cox and other regulators, including Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, and Henry M. Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, have acknowledged general regulatory failures over the last year. Mr. Cox’s statement on Friday, however, went beyond that by blaming a specific program for the financial crisis — and then ending it.
On one level, the commission’s decision to end the regulatory program was somewhat academic, because the five biggest independent Wall Street firms have all disappeared.
The Fed and Treasury Department forced Bear Stearns into a merger with JPMorgan Chase in March. And in the last month, Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs changed their corporate structures to become bank holding companies, which the Federal Reserve regulates.
But the retreat on investment bank supervision is a heavy blow to a once-proud agency whose influence over Wall Street has steadily eroded as the financial crisis has exploded over the last year.
Because it is a relatively small agency, the S.E.C. tries to extend its reach over the vast financial services industry by relying heavily on self-regulation by stock exchanges, mutual funds, brokerage firms and publicly traded corporations.
The program Mr. Cox abolished was unanimously approved in 2004 by the commission under his predecessor, William H. Donaldson. Known by the clumsy title of “consolidated supervised entities,” the program allowed the S.E.C. to monitor the parent companies of major Wall Street firms, even though technically the agency had authority over only the firms’ brokerage firm components.
The commission created the program after heavy lobbying for the plan from all five big investment banks. At the time, Mr. Paulson was the head of Goldman Sachs. He left two years later to become the Treasury secretary and has been the architect of the administration’s bailout plan.
The investment banks favored the S.E.C. as their umbrella regulator because that let them avoid regulation of their fast-growing European operations by the European Union.
Facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Mr. Cox has begun in recent weeks to call for greater government involvement in the markets. He has imposed restraints on short-sellers, market speculators who borrow stock and then sell it in the hope that it will decline. On Tuesday, he asked Congress for the first time to regulate the market for credit-default swaps, financial instruments that insure the holder against losses from declines in bonds and other types of securities.
The commission will continue to be the primary regulator of the companies’ broker-dealer units, and it will work with the Fed to supervise holding companies even though the Fed is expected to take the lead role.
The Fed had already begun regulating Wall Street firms that borrowed money under a new Fed lending program, and the S.E.C. had entered into an agreement under which its examiners worked jointly with Fed examiners, an arrangement that is expected to continue.
The S.E.C. will still have primary responsibility for regulating securities brokers and dealers.
The announcement was the latest illustration of how the market turmoil was rapidly changing the regulatory landscape. In the coming months, Congress will consider overhauls to the regulatory structure, but the markets and the regulators are already transforming it in response to events.
Still, the inspector general’s report made a series of recommendations for the commission and the Federal Reserve that could ultimately reshape how the nation’s largest financial institutions are regulated. The report recommended, for instance, that the commission and the Fed consider tighter limits on borrowing by the companies to reduce their heavy debt loads and risky investing practices.
The report found that the S.E.C. division that oversees trading and markets had failed to update the rules of the program and was “not fulfilling its obligations.” It said that nearly one-third of the firms under supervision had failed to file the required documents. And it found that the division had not adequately reviewed many of the filings made by other firms.
The division’s “failure to carry out the purpose and goals of the broker-dealer risk assessment program hinders the commission’s ability to foresee or respond to weaknesses in the financial markets,” the report said.
The S.E.C. approved the consolidated supervised entities program in 2004 after several important developments in Congress and in Europe.
In 1999, the lawmakers adopted the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which broke down the Depression-era restrictions between investment banks and commercial banks. As part of a political compromise, the law gave the commission the authority to regulate the securities and brokerage operations of the investment banks, but not their holding companies.
In 2002, the European Union threatened to impose its own rules on the foreign subsidiaries of the American investment banks. But there was a loophole: if the American companies were subject to the same kind of oversight as their European counterparts, then they would not be subject to the European rules. The loophole would require the commission to figure out a way to supervise the holding companies of the investment banks.
In 2004, at the urging of the investment banks, the commission adopted a voluntary program. In exchange for the relaxation of capital requirements by the commission, the banks agreed to submit to supervision of their holding companies by the agency.
More Articles in Business » A version of this article appeared in print on September 27, 2008, on page A1 of the New York edition. Enjoy the convenience of home delivery of The Times for less than $1 a day
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Bear Stearns Collapse
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Past Coverage
Markets Soar, But New Rules Upset Traders (September 20, 2008)
A Bid to Curb Profit Gambit As Banks Fall (September 19, 2008)
Regulators Seeking to Change Rules to Ease Bank Mergers (September 18, 2008)
MARKET PLACE; Did It Help To Curb Short Sales? (August 13, 2008)
Flash Lite on Android( HTC Google Mobile)
Posted on September 24, 2008 by Nihal
T-Mobile unveiled yesterday G1 - the first phone ever to be powered by the new Google mobile operating system Android. This new mobile OS by Google is a threat to other mobile OSes such as Symbian, Windows Mobile, and even the iPhone as it is backed by the Open Handset Alliance (Includes HTC, Motorola, Samsun, LG, T-Mobile, and others), it is almost fully open source, it is integrated with many of the Google apps and services such as Gmail, Calendar, and Maps, and it features an online application store.
The question raised by many Flash developers is “what about Flash Lite?”. The Android SDK is available for anyone to develop applications for it for free, there are no restrictions whatsoever on what kind of application you can develop, and anyone can install any application they wish - This is unlike the iPhone SDK which prohibit developing any ‘runtime’ and applications can only be installed through iTunes.
Bill Parry, a developer at Adobe, made a post on his blog saying that Adobe is “closely working” with Android licensees and that in the future “Android based devices will ship with Adobe Flash support”. Bill also says that the movement of Flash into more mobile devices is part of Adobe’s Open Screen Project.
This is surely good news for Flash Lite developers, especially as no signs can be seen for releasing Flash Lite on the iPhone even after the recent release of second version of the OS and even though reports were published three months ago about Adobe successfully running Flash Lite on the iPhone through emulation.
Flash Lite is currently available on Symbian and Windows Mobile, and according to Adobe it is available on 800 million devices shipped worldwide.
As a heavy user of various Google apps, I am very excited about Android, and the inevitable release of Flash on it will surely improve the chances of me getting an Android powered phone in the near future.
http://engineersblackbook.wordpress.com/...
Press Release Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems Announces Internet Availability of Annual Stockholders' Meeting Proxy Materials for Fiscal Year 2008
Wednesday September 24, 6:50 pm ET
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA - News) today announced the Internet availability of proxy materials for its 2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders under the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Notice and Access rule. Sun's proxy materials can now be found on the Company's investor relations website at http://www.sun.com/investors.
As an alternative to the traditional approach of delivering a printed set of proxy materials to each stockholder, companies may now deliver a “Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials” to stockholders, provide Internet access to the proxy materials, and provide a printed set of proxy materials by mail upon request. In 2007, Sun was one of the first large accelerated filers (issuers having a market capitalization of $700 million or more) to adopt the rule. Since adopting the rule, Sun was able to reduce the number of printed copies of its proxy materials by nearly 95 percent as compared to the number of proxy materials printed in 2006 – lowering both the cost and the environmental impact of producing and delivering these materials to its stockholders.
Sun's 2008 annual report on Form 10-K and proxy statement have been filed with the SEC, and may be viewed on Sun's website at http://www.sun.com/investors. Sun's stockholders may obtain printed copies of Sun's proxy materials free of charge by following the instructions provided on the company's website or in the “Notice of Internet Availability of Proxy Materials.”
The Sun Microsystems 2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders will be held on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. (PST) at Sun's Santa Clara Campus, located at 4030 George Sellon Circle, Santa Clara, California 95054.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the ComputerTM" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Contact:
For Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Ron Pasek, 650-786-8008 (Investors)
ron.pasek@sun.com
Kristi Rawlinson, 650-786-6933 (Press)
kristi.rawlinson@sun.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
AP-Sun Microsystems CEO gets $11M 2008 pay package
Wednesday September 24, 7:32 pm ET
By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer
Sun Microsystems CEO gets $11M pay package, a big boost from last year despite recent downturn
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Sun Microsystems Inc. Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz received an $11.1 million pay package in the server and software maker's most recent fiscal year.
The amount represents a 44 percent bump over the previous year's $7.7 million in compensation, a reward for Sun's recent profitability streak, but was far short of what Schwartz could have garnered.
A serious downturn in the second half of the 2008 fiscal year, due to tougher competition from Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. and Santa Clara-based Sun's heavy reliance on U.S. businesses and financial services firms, cut deeply into Sun's results and has held down its shares.
Sun's sales have suffered because of the downturn, disappointing Wall Street and causing Schwartz to only get about half of the performance-based cash bonus for which he was eligible.
Schwartz, whose $1 million annual salary was unchanged from 2007 and remains unchanged for this year, received a $1.04 million bonus, short of the $2 million target because of the company's poor performance in the third and fourth fiscal quarters.
Sun swung to a loss in the third quarter and its profit plunged 73 percent in the fourth quarter. Sun, the world's fourth-largest server maker, also forecast a decline in sales for the first quarter and indicated it likely wouldn't turn a profit, surprising Wall Street analysts.
Schwartz's pay package also included $52,000 for a chauffeur and $6,300 in matching 401(k) contributions.
For the 2008 fiscal year which ended June 30, and in which Sun earned $403 million on $13.9 billion in sales, Schwartz also missed out on millions of dollars in performance-based restricted stock awards because of the company's performance.
Schwartz was awarded 66,000 shares of performance-based restricted stock, worth $4.4 million when they were granted, but only a third of the target amount that Sun had set for him.
Sun said in its proxy filing Wednesday that because all of the performance targets weren't met, 67 percent of the target amount of shares of restricted stock were forfeited.
Still, Schwartz received options on 500,000 shares of Sun's stock, an award worth $4.6 million on the date it was granted. It vests over a total of five years.
Schwartz has said that the ailing U.S. economy played a big part in Sun's downturn in the second half of the year, but analysts said the company is also being squeezed at both the high end and low end of servers because of greater competition from IBM and HP.
The low end in particular, referring to servers based on PC chips built around the so-called x86 design, is being pressured because of price cutting.
Sun's worldwide server market share fell more than 7 percent to 11.2 percent in the most recent quarter, as measured by market research firm IDC. Meanwhile, IBM, the biggest server maker, saw its market share grow nearly 14 percent during the same period.
Still, Schwartz was rewarded for guiding Sun to six profitable quarters out of the last seven periods. Before that, Sun had racked up more than $5 billion in losses after the dot-com collapse. But some analysts are concerned the turnaround is unsustainable because a lot of the improvement has come from job-cutting -- Sun has cut 6,500 jobs over the past two years.
Some investors have said Sun's stock might be a good buy now because it's fallen steadily since the company's 1-for-4 reverse stock split in November, a move that Wall Street saw as a sign Sun couldn't meaningfully improve its share price without the essentially cosmetic maneuver.
The stock traded above $20 when the split happened, and is now around its lowest levels since. Sun shares gained 6 cents to $7.82 on Wednesday.
The Associated Press calculations of total pay include executives' salary, bonus, incentives, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year.
The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Google phone to cost $179, debut Oct. 22 By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
2 hours, 1 minute ago
NEW YORK - The first phone that harnesses Google Inc.'s ambition to make the Internet easy to use on the go was revealed Tuesday, and it looks a lot like an iPhone
T-Mobile USA showed off the G1, a phone that, like Apple Inc.'s iPhone, has a large touch screen. But it also packs a trackball, a slide-out keyboard and easy access to Google's e-mail and mapping programs.
T-Mobile said it will begin selling the G1 for $179 with a two-year contract. The device hits U.S. stores Oct. 22 and heads to Britain in November and other European countries early next year.
The phone will be sold in T-Mobile stores only in the U.S. cities where the company has rolled out its faster, third-generation wireless data network. By launch, that will be 21 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Miami.
In other areas, people will be able to buy the phone from T-Mobile's Web site. The phone does work on T-Mobile's slower data network, but it's optimized for the faster networks. It can also connect at Wi-Fi hotspots.
The data plan for the phone will cost $25 per month on top of the calling service, at the low end of the range for data plans at U.S. wireless carriers. And at $179, the G1 is $20 less than the least expensive iPhone in the U.S.
Android, the free software powering the G1, is a crucial building block in Google's efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers. The company believes it eventually might make more money selling ads that get shown on mobile devices than on PCs, a channel that will generate about $20 billion in revenue this year.
Both Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also are investing heavily in the mobile market in hopes of preventing Google from extending the dominance it enjoys in searches initiated on PCs.
In an interview, Google co-founder Sergey Brin said Google's aims are broader than mobile advertising.
"Generally, we think if there are great (operating systems) out there that let people have great devices and great applications, people use the Internet on their phones much more," Brin said at the launch event in New York. "And whenever people use the Internet more, they end up using our services,
Hands-on impressions: T-Mobile's G1, the first Google phone
Tue Sep 23, 2008 2:34PM EDT
See Comments (6)
Buzz up!on Yahoo!Watch out, Apple. The G1 may not be as sleek and sexy as the iPhone, but its peppy, easy-to-use touchscreen interface makes mincemeat of all the other iPhone wanna-bes, and it packs in some killer features—like 360-degree Street View—that the iPhone has yet to match.
Granted, I've only had a few minutes of hands-on time with the T-Mobile G1, so this doesn't count as a review—we're just talking first impressions here. But first impressions count, and the G1 ($179, available October 22) scored big during my brief test drive. (Click here for full specs and details on Tuesday's announcement.)
So, let's talk about the hardware first. As I mentioned in my initial post, the G1 is slightly bulkier and heavier and—well, let's just say it—a little uglier than the slim, sexy iPhone. Weighing in at 5.6 ounces, I could definitely feel the G1's extra bulk in my hand, although at just 0.6 inches thick, the G1 should fit relatively easily in a jeans pocket.
The G1's 3.17-inch screen is slightly smaller than the iPhone's 3.5-inch display, and at first glance, its interface looks a bit dull compared to Apple's red-hot handset (and unfortunately, my shaky photography skills don't help). But beneath the G1's sliding display, we get a surprise—a full, Sidekick-sized QWERTY keypad, perfect for those who don't want to deal with a touchscreen keyboard. There's also a trackball, a Home key, and physical Call and End buttons.
While the G1's main screen isn't quite as eye-popping as the iPhone's, the Android-powered display was surprisingly responsive—a quick flick of my fingertip opened a windowshade of applications, while tapping the status bar at the top of the screen instantly revealed e-mail, SMS, and voice-mail alerts. Indeed, tapping and scrolling around the G1's various menus was a seamless pleasure, akin to what you'd expect from an iPhone. And while leading iPhone competitors like the Samsung Instinct always felt a bit sluggish to me, the G1's peppy interface responded quickly to my every touch.
Of course, you'll get the most out of the G1 if you're using Google's suite of online applications, all of which sync automatically the moment you sign in. The push Gmail client features threaded messaging, just like you'd expect online, and you can star messages, organize them with filters, and even conduct Google searches within the e-mail client itself. You can also use the client to check your POP and IMAP accounts—no full-on Exchange syncing, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, third-party developers are free to create their own Exchange syncing apps for Android.
The G1's dialer and contact list immediately grabs all your online Google calendar info and contacts—and for those with IM accounts, the G1 will indicate which of your contacts happen to be signed in for chat, an "online presence" feature familiar to anyone with a Helio phone. As with the iPhone, you can flick your contact list with a finger, spinning it roulette-style. Nice.
The Android Web browser on the G1 immediately takes its place as one of the top mobile browsers I've seen, right next to those on the iPhone and Nokia Nseries handsets. Pages rendered quickly (over Wi-Fi, at least) and perfectly; a tap brings up zoom in/out controls, while a touch-enabled magnifying glass lets you quickly scan lengthy Web pages. (No multitouch-enabled "pinching," however.) See a picture you want to save? Just touch and hold; a contextual menu pops up with a variety of options, including saving the image to the phone.
Coolest of all, though, is Google Maps on the G1, complete with GPS and Street View. In the demo I saw (over Wi-Fi), maps loaded quickly, as did Street View images, and they refreshed almost instantly as I dragged maps and images around with my finger.
The best part? Using Street View with the G1's built-in compass. Say you're facing north; you hold the G1 in front of you, select Street View, and you'll see your street from a north-facing vantage point. Turn east—with the phone still in front of you—and the Street View image follows. Angle the phone skyward, and Street View moves likewise. Way, way cool (and impressively fast and responsive, to boot).
Disappointments? Well, the G1's music player is no great shakes; it'll play your standard MP3/WMA/AAC/Ogg Vobis files, but the bare-bones player interface can't hold a candle to the iPhone's. (At least you can buy MP3s wirelessly using the bundled Amazon application.) Also, there's no video player—then again, as T-Mobile reps kept repeating, there's nothing stopping third-party developers from building one (or many).
And while the G1's three-megapixel camera tops the iPhone's 2MP shooter, the G1 doesn't come with built-in video recording—although (yep, you guessed it), third-party developers should feel free to fill the void.
Indeed, the T-Mobile reps I spoke to said that any and all of the G1's main features are open to third-party development—the dialer, the e-mail client, the music player, you name it. Again, that's the beauty of the open-source Android OS (versus Apple's we-must-control-everything approach).
Of course, the G1's biggest drawback may end up lying squarely with T-Mobile—or, more specifically, its nascent 3G network. When the G1 goes on sale next month, only about 21 markets will be covered by T-Mobile's new HSDPA network—so if you're outside those cities, you'll have to make do with poky EDGE data or Wi-Fi.
Overall, however, I'm pretty impressed. I wasn't that wowed by the G1's uninspiring design, but Android shows a lot of promise, and its peppy performance on the G1 is a huge plus.
So, who's thinking about snapping up a G1? Have any questions you'd like answered? Post 'em below.
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Lego Batman
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, DS
Genre: Action
Release Date: September 23
The caped crusader gets an angular makeover in Lego Batman. Protect Gotham as Batman and sidekick Robin from a rash of criminals, including nefarious villains like The Penguin, Two-Face, The Riddler and Mr. Freeze. Utilize a wealth of Bat-gadgets to survive over 30 levels in another comical Lego adventure.
Why It's Hot:
It's Lego. It's Batman. If you can't suss out why this is hot, we're not sure we can help you. Go sit in the corner and put on your Bat-dunce cap.
Why It's Not:
We stand by these Lego games because they are that very rare breed of video game that appeals equally to parents and kids. Still, they're all sort of the same game. If you've played Lego Star Wars and Lego Indy, don't expect a huge change in gameplay with the blocky Dark Knight.
Get More Game Details
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Visit Launch Central
LEGO Batman Screenshots
Posted: 12 Sep 2008
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Fall Games Guide
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James Bond: Quantum of Solace
Tom Clancy's Endwar
Gears of War 2
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Google GPhone To Be First JavaFX Phone?
Rumours about a Google mobile phone continue to do the rounds. If we put some “facts” together, they point to an interesting conclusion: that Google’s new phone could be the first phone to be based on the JavaFX Mobile phone operating system.
JavaFX Mobile is Sun’s new mobile phone OS. The OS is based around a Linux/Java stack. Here’s a picture showing a development version of JavaFX Mobile, giving a feel for what it looks like, compared to the iPhone. In JavaFX mobile, the user interface, and all applications are written in Java (including both Java ME and Java SE), and can be programmed by using the new scripting language, JavaFX Script.
The first piece of evidence that’s compatible with JavaFX Mobile being the GPhone OS comes from Om Malik, who cites a “reliable source” saying,
Google Phone is based on a mobile variant of Linux, and is able to run Java virtual machines… All applications that are supposed to run on the Google Phone are Java apps… The entire UI is said to be done in Java…
So, JavaFX Mobile seems to fit…. Except… is there any evidence to suggest that any company has taken a license to JavaFX Mobile? It turns out there is. On 20 August, Scott McNealy, Sun’s Chairman gave an interview to India Business Today. In the article, he is quoted as saying - We just signed one (a JavaFX Mobile licensing deal) last night.
So, there we have it. Just some speculation really. It could make sense though - JavaFX Mobile might be just the combination of “off-the-shelf” vs “customizable” that Google would want to enable it to rapidly deliver a differentiated product into the market place.
Having said all that, it’s probably rather more likely that Google has developed its own mobile phone OS. Google acquired a company called Android in 2005. Android was never public about the work it was doing, but it has been said that Android was working on a mobile phone OS that was very similar to, but rather better than, the SavaJe phone OS that went on to become Java FX Mobile.
Comments
GoatTuber wrote:
There are some nice concept images of the Google Phone on the web. The image here shows an FIC Neo1973 that should be running OpenMoko, which is worthy of an article itself. Rumor has it that Google is developing on a series of HTC phones. This is going to be very interesting.
Posted 04 Sep 2007 at 5:22 pm ¶
Lally wrote:
That’d explain the sudden focus on Google Web Toolkit. Compiles to Javascript _and_ JavaFX Mobile’s APIs?
Still, this puts in question the relationship between Apple & Google…
Posted 05 Sep 2007 at 3:42 am ¶
simon wrote:
Lally, do you have a link to GWT and JavaFX Mobile APIs? I haven’t seen that anywhere.
Not sure it puts the relationship between Google and Apple into too much question. Surely, Google wants its services to be accessible from everywhere, including all mobile phones… including iPhone. Apple did all the work to create the iPhone Google apps; Google just let Apple hook into their web services. So it’s not like Google has any major resources dedicated to iPhone.
Posted 05 Sep 2007 at 9:21 am ¶
Lally wrote:
Oh, I didn’t mean it does JavaFX right now. Just that another compiler backend wouldn’t be out of the question.
Notice how the new iPod has Wifi, safari, but no Google Maps? Google’s Eric Schmidt is on Apple’s board.
Posted 05 Sep 2007 at 6:43 pm ¶
Asam Bashir wrote:
Maybe they didn’t mention it but until the iPod Touch launches it’s pure speculation as to if it has Google Maps or not. I don’t see any conflict between Apple and Google, the mobile phone market is obviously huge so there is enough room for both of them, and more as Microsoft Mobile whatever decreases market share.
Interesting news regarding the iPhone prices today, drops of $200. Haven’t fully digested all the news from Apple today, but maybe the drop is related to a different marketing strategy and price plan for the European iPhone, which should be out next month. At the same time we should the introduction of the iPhone Nano, candy bar form factor, so maybe it will look very similar to the short and fat iPod Nanos released today.
The huge range and diversity of the iPod range today is just amazing and truely reflects just how large the market has become. The Apple phone market will follow in the same manner.
Microsoft and Nokia and others in the industry should be very worried today, I think we just saw the death of the Zune Squirt and Nokia Internet Pad.
Now if Apple opens up the iPhone/iPod Touch OS X officially (all ready open in the underground) and GPS enabled iPhone/iPod accessories start shipping, it will kill the GPS navigation market and the likes of TomTom and Navman, which is what Nokia has been going after.
Also it seems Apple is working on car interfaces now with Mercedes and BMW due for 2008/200 models. With VW it’s building an iCar The whole damn thing, the dials in the dashboard, the GUI of the speedo, built in navigation and iPod.
Bring it on Apple
Posted 06 Sep 2007 at 3:18 am ¶
Apple + VMware = Big Business
By Anders Bylund (TMF Zahrim)
September 18, 2008 Comment (0) Recommend (0)
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If Steve Jobs doesn't want to push Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) into the enterprise computing arena, maybe VMware (NYSE: VMW) can do the honors.
The just-released VMware Fusion 2.0 brings a slew of business-friendly new features to this user-friendly tool for running Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows software on Mac hardware. Most importantly, users can now take multiple snapshots of their virtual machines, making it easy to backup and restore the "guest" operating system's working state. Furthermore, the integration between Fusion and the Mac OS X user interface has been improved, including seamless data sharing between the two environments. And now you can set up certain file types to open in Mac or Windows applications when double-clicked. "We want our customers to see that Windows really is better on the Mac," says VMware spokesman Pat Lee in a written statement.
Because Fusion is targeted to a specific host platform -- Mac OS X -- and its very specific set of Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) hardware, it's a lean and mean virtual machine with great performance and an ever-slicker user experience. VMware Workstation and Server are built to work on a range of different hardware/software platforms, so it's harder to make them as efficient or as easy-to-use as Fusion is.
It's not the only virtualization option available for Mac users today, but the offerings from Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA) and Parallels lack much of the spit-shine and performance of Fusion. And the backup-friendly snapshots bring VMware's product to a whole new level of appeal to the business world. And it's dragging Apple's user-friendly computers right along with it. Last year, Microsoft's business software division made more than $15 billion on enterprise sales last year. Apple and VMware look ready to steal a sliver of that rich, creamy cash pie.
Further Foolishness:
VMware Buries the Competition
Move Over, BlackBerry! Here Comes Apple!
Virtual News, Virtual Reality
Was This Stock a Mistake?
Sun Announces Winners of OpenSolaris Community Innovation Awards
4:25p ET September 18, 2008 (Business Wire)
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA) today announced the winners of the OpenSolaris(TM) Community Innovation Awards Program, designed to fuel innovation around OpenSolaris. The OpenSolaris program included both a contest and a student grant component and was part of Sun's Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program, a multi-year program running across several open source communities with a $1 Million total prize.
"Solaris has always been the 'gold standard' for other operating systems to emulate, and Sun took the Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) movement by storm by publishing Solaris' source code," said Grand Prize winner Al Hopper of Genunix.Org. "The OpenSolaris project is now more than three years old, has a healthy and growing user community and continues to gain mindshare. In the future, the launch of OpenSolaris will be seen as a major landmark in the history of computing and will be viewed as a significant precursor to the runaway success of the F/OSS revolution."
"In support of Sun's commitment to free and open source software, we developed the Open Source Community Innovation Awards Program to foster innovation and recognize the most interesting initiatives within open source communities worldwide," said Jim Grisanzio, community lead and OpenSolaris Governing Board member, Sun. "The winning projects we have chosen demonstrate extraordinary creativity and usefulness to the community."
The OpenSolaris Community made two types of awards:
-- Eighteen contest entries won prizes. See and download the winning entries at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/awards/awards_land/ Entries/. Winning contest entries range from new distributions to tools that make using and administering OpenSolaris easier.
-- Six teams of undergraduate students won grants for projects to be completed in December 2008. See the winning proposals at http://www.opensolaris.org/os/project/awards/awards_research_ land/Proposals/. The OpenSolaris Undergraduate Student Research Grant Program is intended to build working relationships between the OpenSolaris community and colleges, faculty, and students. The program is designed to recognize and award grants for outstanding student engineering or research projects related to OpenSolaris.
OpenSolaris Community
The OpenSolaris open source project was created by Sun Microsystems in 2005 to build a developer community around the Solaris OS. It is aimed at developers, system administrators and users who want to develop and improve operating systems. As of August 2008, there are more than 100,000 community members registered on http://opensolaris.org. Seventy OpenSolaris User Groups around the world represent an active and growing collaboration with dozens of OpenSolaris technology groups and projects hosted on http://opensolaris.org.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is The Computer"(TM) -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, OpenSolaris, Solaris, and "The Network Is The Computer" are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
SOURCE: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems, Inc. Terri Molini, 408-404-4976 terri.molini@sun.com or Bite PR for Sun Microsystems, Inc. Jessica Cheney, 415-365-0382 jessica.cheney@bitepr.com
Borrowed from another board/poster F6
Lots of stuff to digest in here...>
_where's my geek squad when I need him, LOL
__________________________________________________________
Posted by: F6 Date: Saturday, September 13, 2008 9:29:55 AM
In reply to: magillagorilla who wrote msg# 232604 Post # of 233536
Could There Be More To Google, Android, Chrome, & Gears Than Meets The Eye?
Posted by David Berlind, Sep 12, 2008 02:09 PM
Yesterday, I wrote about the war -- more like the Armageddon -- that's on the verge of eruption in the mobile space. Given how critical third party software developers are to the strategic success of any platform ecosystem, we can fully expect Apple, Google (NSDQ: GOOG), RIM (NSDQ: RIMM), Sun (with Java), the Symbian Foundation, Adobe (NSDQ: ADBE) and others to fight tooth and nail for every mobile developer on the planet. More than one will succeed. But not all. Or, might it not matter? The answer could very much depend on how exactly Google plays its cards with Android, Chrome, and Gears. Consider this.
For those of you who are deeply familiar with Android, Chrome, and Gears, here's the punchline so you won't have to read any further: By offering mobile developers an alternative way for making their mobile applications run on handsets, even when no wireless connection exists, Google is paving the way for developers to build browser-based applications that can run on any mobile platform as opposed to having to build separate versions of their applications in order to support those same mobile platforms.
Simply put, software developers want access to volume markets. Given the fragmentation in the mobile platform market, it's not as easy as it was in the original desktop days to pick one platform that can get you access to the majority of the market's volume.
For mobile developers to reach the entire market, they have to think "cross-platform" and, unfortunately, the only cross-platform play in the mobile market is the Web browser. It's the only "platform" that, in one form or another, is available on all of today's smartphones (as well as many other handsets). Why do I say "unfortunately?" Because the Web experience is only as good as the weakest link which, in the case of mobiles, is pretty darn weak: the network. If the network is either slow or unavailable to your handset, the Web experience is not even an experience. It's wholly unreliable.
Mobile developers are painfully aware of the situation. As a result, if they want their software to experience any sort of success in the mobile market, their only choice for reliability's sake is to write their applications in such a way that they can be downloaded, stored, and run locally on the handsets themselves, outside of the Web browser. These non-browser based applications must be developed specifically for the various mobile applications and in many cases, specific to certain handsets. From a developer's point of view, having to maintain multiple versions of the same application is a nightmare, and you simply can't support everything. Choices have to be made (and the various mobile platform makers will bend over backwards to make sure you choose them).
In the 1-2-3 combination of Android, Chrome, and Gears, Google appears to be sending a message to developers: it's time to end the nightmare.
Android, as most know, is the open source handset operating system that Google is launching into the market. Expectations are that the first Android handset -- HTC's Dream -- will ship later this month. T-Mobile is the network operator (take that AT&T (NYSE: T)).
Chrome is the name of Google's recently announced Web browser. It's only available for Windows but the word is that it will be available for other operating systems including Mac, Linux and, of course, Android.
Gears is another one of Google's open source technologies that, for the Web applications that support it, makes a Web browser think it has a connection to the Web, even when it doesn't (like, on an airplane). Without a connection to the Internet, most Web-based applications (eg: Web-based e-mail) stop working because they can't exchange data and instructions with a Web server. The number of Web apps that support Gears is slowly ticking up. Because of its open source nature, neither the browser nor the Web application has to be Google-based. Zoho is just one example of a competitor to Google (in the Web-based office suite market) that uses Gears so that Zoho customers can access Zoho applications, even when they can't connect to Zoho's Web servers. Earlier this week, MySpace announced at the TechCrunch50 conference that it would offer its members offline access using Google's Gears.
Since the offline problem is one of the key arguments against switching from locally installed software like Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Office to Web-based competitors like Google Apps, Gears has been widely discussed as the game-changing technology that could ameliorate the key disadvantage of using Web apps. In the context of desktop and notebook PCs, the combination of browsers, browser-based applications and a technology like Gears is a very credible threat to franchises like Microsoft's Windows and Office and is very often discussed as such. For example, under the headline of "Chrome: Google's Windows Killer", PC World's Steve Bass recently wrote:
This is a direct attack on Microsoft -- and I think Microsoft is worried. That's because a small kernel on your local system could boot you into directly into Chrome, or a server-based operating system, and you could start working sans Windows.
Notwithstanding Office on the Mac, sans Windows also means sans Microsoft Office.
But, the existence alone of a potentially game-changing technology like Gears usually isn't enough to change the game. Gears is not an application like Office or Google Apps that people see in a user experience. It's infrastructural in nature. When Gears is in use, it runs quietly behind the scenes or in what many refer to as "the fabric." Unfortunately, it's not in the fabric by default. And it's not like visiting an Adobe Flash-based application or a Java-based application where end-users who don't have the necessary "fabric" on their devices are prompted with an in-your-face dialog that says "Hey! You need Flash to do this. Click here to download and install it."
Unlike with Flash and Java, Gears isn't needed to blanketly to run the Web applications that support it [sic]. It's only needed to run those applications in a certain mode (the offline mode) that, for some of the applications like Google Reader that support Gears, doesn't get invoked unless the user explicitly invokes it as shown below:
Even worse (in terms of getting a technology like Gears into the fabric), the option to invoke the Gears-driven offline mode of a Web application like Google Reader isn't even available as an option unless Gears is locally installed (as seen in the bottom part of the above graphic). The net net is that Gears isn't the easiest technology to ubiquitously deploy into the fabric of the Web.
Enter Chrome (and its open source nature).
Most people missed it. But originally, the download for Google's Chrome browser was associated with Gears on Google's Web site. Today, to get the functionality of Gears in one of the main three browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, or Safari), it must be added-on separately by the end-user. With Chrome, it won't be an add on. It will be a foundational element of the browser.
Last week, I juxtaposed the comments from the executives at Google and Mozilla to show that, when it came to browser fundamentals, Google and Mozilla were not seeing eye-to-eye on something (or probably multiple things). My guess is that Google sees an offline technology like Gears as being so fundamental to the future of Web applications, that it can't not be built into the browser. The folks at Mozilla (where Gears is an add-on t the browser), on the other hand, probably didn't see it that way.
I'm speculating here, but, from Google's point-of-view, if it gets built into the various browsers, making Gears a part of the Web's fabric the way HTML renderers or Javascript engines are a part of the fabric is no longer a problem. That's one reason Google open-sourced it: to encourage unencumbered adoption. It's one of the main reasons that any vendor would open-sources anything. From the Mozilla Foundation's point of view (in my opinion), building a vendor-provided technology like Gears into FireFox (as opposed to requiring the add-on approach) sets a precedent that the Foundation must be careful about setting. If Gears, then why not Flash? Or Java?
There are probably technical reasons it makes more sense for Gears to be a foundational element of the browser rather than an add-on. My guess is that it offers more stability and reliability, particularly in a partitioned environment where, like in Chrome, tabs are actually separate instances of the browser.
So, what does any of this have to do with mobile developers. If there's one environment that's super duper sensitive to both the presence and peformance of the network, that environment, as stated earlier is the mobile Web browser. Going back to Google founder Larry Page's statements about Chrome, he mentioned the need for speed. In a mobile environment, a technology like Gears is really just a cache and, in the technology world, caches are more commonly associated with performance than they are with the off-line mode of a browser. Technically speaking, there's no reason a technology like Gears can't be seamlessly working in the background all the time so that a mobile browser can fetch the next thing it needs from that cache instead from the slow and/or non-present network.
Let' say the two biggest reasons mobile developers are choosing to build locally stored and executed applications instead of mobile browser-based applications are speed and performance. Now let's say both of those challenges can be addressed by the presence of a standard caching technology like Gears in the majority of the mobile browsers found in many of the future's handsets. As a developer looking to access as much of the market as possible with a single code-base, your first choice would have to be to develop for the browser first. Not only does this give you access to the broadest part of the mobile market, it gives that same application access to the desktop/notebook market too (where the fabric is really no different).
One counter-argument to this is that there is a software development kit for Android much the same way there's one for the other mobile operating systems and that its presence encouraqes developers to go the platform-specific route rather than the Web route. But in the big picture, Google has no interest in limiting the availability of its cloud to Android handsets. Google wins much bigger so long as end-users perceive mobile Web apps to be fast and reliable and, by way of mobile browsers, more users have fast and reliable access to Google's Web apps.
One of the best ways to create that perception (and reality) is to get more mobile developers building for the Web instead of any specific platform. It's a win for developers looking to reach the broader market. It's a win for end-users who shouldn't be forced into picking a specific platform or network (eg: iPhone/AT&T) just to get access to certain applications. It's a win for Google. Who is it not good for? You don't have to look far.
Copyright © 2008 United Business Media LLC
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/09/could_there_be.html [embedded links]
_____________________________________________________
Central Banks Offer Extra Funds to Calm Money Markets (Update6)
By John Fraher and Simon Kennedy
Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve almost quadrupled the amount of dollars central banks can auction around the world to $247 billion in a coordinated bid to ease the worst crisis facing financial markets since the 1920s.
The Fed increased the amount of dollars that the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and other counterparts can offer from $67 billion ``to address the continued elevated pressures in U.S. dollar short-term funding markets.'' The Bank of England, the Bank of Canada and the Swiss National Bank also participated.
Policy makers have struggled to revive confidence in markets this week as investors stockpiled money on concern more financial institutions would fail after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the U.S. government bailout of American International Group Inc. The cost to hedge against losses on U.S. government debt climbed to a record yesterday.
``There's a complete lack of faith in the markets,'' said Jim O'Neill, chief economist at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London. ``There's a lot of cash hoarding and people losing trust in banks, so the central banks are acting to relieve that. This might not be the last time they have to act.''
Markets welcomed the announcement, which was made in statements from each central bank at 9 a.m. Frankfurt time at the start of European trading. The cost of borrowing dollars overnight slid to 3.84 percent from 5.03 percent yesterday. It was 2.15 percent last week and reached the highest since 2001 on Sept. 15.
Limit Doubled
The Fed, which is adding $50 billion into its own banking system today, will spray dollars around the world via swap lines with other central banks. They can then auction them in their own markets. The ECB, Bank of England and Swiss National Bank allotted a total of $64 billion for one day today.
``The timing, so early in the trading day, shows both the severity of the strains in the interbank market and as well the authorities' determination to resuscitate orderly functioning of the money markets,'' said Julian Callow, head of European economics at Barclays Capital in London.
Under the new arrangements, the ECB doubled the limit of dollars it can get from the Fed to $110 billion and Switzerland's central bank can offer $27 billion, an extra $15 billion. New swap facilities with the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada amount to $60 billion, $40 billion and $10 billion, respectively. The arrangements are authorized until Jan. 30.
Use as Necessary
The ECB said it would offer $40 billion ``for as long as needed'' in overnight funds to the region's banks. It will also increase by $5 billion the amount it lends for 28 days and 84 days to $25 billion and $15 billion. The Swiss National Bank will boost its 28-day auctions to $8 billion and the 84-day offering to $9 billion. Both were previously $6 billion.
The Bank of Canada said it has decided not to draw on its $10 billion swap facility at this time. The Bank of Japan, whose policy board held an emergency meeting today, said it will use its $60 billion as required by market conditions.
In auctions of their own currencies, the ECB today lent 25 billion euros in one-day money and the Bank of England 66.2 billion pounds in one-week loans.
The joint action is the latest attempt by central bankers to avert the financial crisis which deepened this week after Lehman and AIG tumbled and Merrill Lynch & Co. was sold. The crisis began over a year ago after the U.S. housing market imploded and has pushed the world economy to the brink of recession.
Asian Action
As markets seized up this week, central bankers pushed more than $200 billion into markets with those in Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia doing so again today.
Wall Street's woes have gone global, forcing the U.K. government to sponsor a rescue of mortgage lender HBOS Plc and Russia to pour money into its banks. Russia's government said today it would invest in the country's stock market when it reopens tomorrow. The official Xinhua News Agency said China will buy equity stakes in state-owned banks to stabilize its market.
Swap lines were first established in December when officials joined forces to boost dollar liquidity around the world after interest-rate reductions in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada failed to ease concerns about bank lending. The Fed increased its link with the ECB in July.
The announcement today boosted European shares and U.S. futures, which have been pummeled this week as contagion spread through financial markets. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index futures expiring in December added 15, or 1.3 percent, to 1,177.9 as of 11:22 a.m. in London. More than $19 trillion has been wiped off the value of global stock markets since Oct. 31.
More May Be Needed
Failure to calm markets will see central banks inject even more cash, said Robert Barrie, an economist at Credit Suisse Group in London. Other options central banks could take include accepting greater collateral denominated in foreign currencies and increasing lending to banks abroad.
``The lack of dollars has been making the financial crisis worse around the world, which is why we now have this coordinated response,'' Barrie said.
Since the credit squeeze began in August 2007, central banks have sought to keep apart the need to soothe markets and to combat inflation. They argue that interest rates are a blunt tool for helping markets and that price pressures prevent them from cutting rates. While the Fed slashed its key lending rate to 2 percent, the central bank has left it there since April. The Bank of Japan kept its key rate at 0.5 percent this week and the European Central Bank increased its benchmark to a seven-year high in July.
If the spasms in the markets continue and threaten to derail growth central bankers may shift, although for now they will want to wait, said Kevin Gaynor, head of economics at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London.
``Partly this is to keep powder dry and partly because cutting interest rates won't make much difference,'' he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: John Fraher in London at jfraher@bloomberg.net; Simon Kennedy in Paris at Skennedy4@bloomberg.net
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=ahBSRLQsJFzI&refer=economy
Fed, central banks move to boost global confidence
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AFP – An investor reacts as he monitors the share index at a private stock market gallery in Kuala Lumpur. … NEW YORK – The Federal Reserve, working with central banks in Europe, Canada and Asia, pumped as much as $180 billion into money markets on Thursday to combat a seizing up of lending between banks that is intensifying global financial crisis.
The move was aimed at boosting waning confidence and getting banks around the world to open their ever-tightening purse strings. Asian markets closed lower, but the Fed action helped send European stocks higher after three days of losses.
Wall Street appeared headed for a higher opening, after dropping 450 points Wednesday when a Fed bailout of American International Group Inc., one of the world's largest insurers, failed to settle the markets' frayed nerves.
Worries that other financial companies could fail may cast a pall on the central banks' step, which spread billions of dollars around the world in exchange for foreign currencies.
In a statement, the Fed said it had authorized the expansion of swap lines, or reciprocal currency arrangements, with the other central banks, including amounts up to $110 billion by the ECB and up to $27 million by the Swiss National Bank.
The Fed also said new swap facilities had been authorized with the Bank of Japan for as much as $60 billion; $40 billion for the Bank of England and $10 billion for the Bank of Canada.
All told, Fed action increased lines of cash to central banks by $180 billion to $247 billion.
At home, the New York Federal Reserve acted to ease a spike in overnight lending rates by injecting $55 billion into the banking system in two operations of temporary reserves.
A sharp rise in such borrowing costs makes banks hoard cash, worsening already tight credit conditions that have led to the worst financial upheaval since the Great Depression.
For more than a year, investors around the world have watched with growing alarm as the U.S. economy, the world's largest, has struggled to right itself before being tipped over the edge by massive foreclosures, shrinking consumer spending and rising inflation.
The turmoil has swallowed some of the most storied names on Wall Street. Three of its five major investment banks — Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch — have either gone out of business or been driven into the arms of another bank.
The two remaining — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — were under siege.
On Wednesday, financial stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 dropped 10 percent, and insurance that backs corporate debt soared for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
The Dow Jones industrial average, which only two days earlier had suffered its steepest drop since the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, lost another 450 points. About $700 billion in investments vanished.
Shares of the nation's largest thrift, Washington Mutual Inc., fell 13 percent amid reports that the government was trying to find a buyer for the bank, which has been battered by bad home loans. It lost $3.3 billion in the second quarter.
And, demand for super-safe Treasurys surged Wednesday, sending the yield on the 3-month Treasury bill briefly into negative territory for the first time since 1940, as investors rushed for the closest thing to cash.
After the government bailed out the insurer American International Group Inc. and a money fund "broke the buck," investors were worried about the riskiness of most assets.
It was the fourth consecutive day of extraordinary turmoil for the American financial system, beginning with news on Sunday that Lehman Brothers, would be forced to file for bankruptcy.
The 4 percent drop Wednesday in the Dow reflected the stock market's first chance to digest the Fed's decision to rescue AIG with an $85 billion taxpayer loan that effectively gives it a majority stake in the company. AIG is important because it has essentially become a primary source of insurance for the entire financial industry.
As the stock market staggered, the price of gold, which rises in times of panic, spiked as much as $90.40 an ounce. Bonds, a traditional safe haven for investors, also climbed.
"The economy is not short of money. It is short of confidence," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University.
"It seems as though banks are hoarding cash, no matter what rate they could be lending it at," said David Rosenberg, North American economist at Merrill Lynch.
Mortgage rates, which had fallen after the government's takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, rose again, removing a glimmer of hope that the housing crisis, the kindling for the broader financial meltdown, was hitting bottom.
And new statistics showed that construction of new homes and apartments fell a surprising 6.2 percent in August to the weakest pace in 17 years.
Jobs, too, have been affected by the tighter credit. With banks unwilling to lend, businesses are reluctant to expand. New applications for unemployment benefits rose last week, although much of that increase was due to the impact of Hurricane Gustav, the Labor Department said Thursday.
But the four-week average of new claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose by 5,000 to 445,000. Economists consider initial claims above 400,000 a sign of a struggling economy. A year ago, the figure stood at about 320,000.
On Wednesday, the Treasury Department, for the first time in its history, said it would begin selling bonds for the Fed in an effort to help the central bank deal with its unprecedented borrowing needs.
Treasury officials said the action did not mean that the Fed was running short of cash, but simply was a way for the government to better manage its financing needs.
Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission tightened rules on short selling, the practice of betting that a stock will fall.
A $62 billion money market fund — Primary Fund from Reserve — on Tuesday saw its holdings fall below its total deposits, a condition known as "breaking the buck" that hasn't happened to a money market fund since 1994, Rosenberg said. Money market funds are supposed to be conservatively invested and almost as safe as cash.
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Euro stocks up, Asia's down as central banks act
By MATT MOORE, AP Business Writer Matt Moore, Ap Business Writer – 46 mins ago Play Video AP – Asian stocks tumble
Slideshow: Stock Markets Play Video Video: Charlie Rose - Hank Greenberg Charlie Rose Related Quotes Symbol Price Change
AIG 2.05 0
DB 70.40 0
LEH 0.00 0
MS 21.75 0
Reuters – A trader reacts in the S and P 500 pit at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, September 15, 2008. (John … FRANKFURT, Germany – European stocks halted three days of losses in early afternoon trading Thursday, rising slightly after a concerted effort by central banks to pump billions more U.S. dollars into troubled money markets and limit the global financial crisis. Asian markets fell.
Britain's FTSE-100 was up 1.6 percent after Lloyds TSB PLC's 12.2 billion-pound ($21.8 billion) deal to acquire struggling HBOS PLC, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, eased some concern among traders there.
"The acquisition will strengthen the presence of Lloyds on the UK market," said Ivanka Stefanova, a credit analyst with UniCredit in Munich.
In Frankfurt, the German DAX was up nearly 1 percent, lifted in part by shares of Deutsche Boerse AG, which rose nearly 11 percent, as well as automaker Volkswagen AG, whom investors believe will likely be completely taken over by Porsche SE in the coming weeks. That pushed shares of Europe's biggest automaker up more than 10.1 percent in trading.
Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's biggest bank by assets, saw its shares rise more than 4 percent to euro52.44.
Analysts said the gains in European markets were largely the result of the announcement by the European Central Bank, Federal Reserve and central banks in Switzerland, Japan, Britain and Canada, to provide as much as $180 billion in extra dollars to cash-starved banks.
In a statement, the Fed said it had authorized the expansion of swap lines, or reciprocal currency arrangements, with the other central banks, including amounts up to $110 billion by the ECB and up to $27 million by the Swiss National Bank.
The Fed also said new swap facilities had been authorized with the Bank of Japan for as much as $60 billion; $40 billion for the Bank of England and $10 billion for the Bank of Canada.
In Paris, the CAC 40 was up nearly 1.1 percent, led in part by bank Dexia, shares of which were up almost 10 percent, as well as strong ganis by banks Credit Agricle and BNP Paribas, both of which surged 5.9 percent and 5.8 percent higher.
Gains were also seen on exchanges in Madrid, where the SMSI was up 1.4 percent and in Stockholm, where stocks rose nearly 1 percent.
Elsewhere, Russia's main stock exchanges remained mostly closed Thursday, a day after regulators suspended trading amid a dizzying plummet in share prices. The MICEX resumed limited trading; the RTS was set to reopen Friday.
ITAR-Tass and Interfax quoted Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin also as saying that Russia's three largest banks will be getting an extra 60 billion rubles ($2.36 billion) to help bolster the financial markets.
Across Asia, stocks fell but managed to erase most of the sharp losses that arose after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy protection and insurer American International Group Inc. was bailed out by the U.S. government.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, which sank more than 7 percent at one point, closed virtually flat at 17,632 points. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index, also paring early losses, ended down 2.2 percent to 11,489.30, a three-year low.
In other markets, Australia's S&P/ASX200 index fell 2.4 percent, South Korea's Kospi lost 2.3 percent, and China's Shanghai benchmark dropped 1.7 percent after earlier falling 7 percent.
Investors were shaken by the Federal Reserve's $85 billion emergency loan to AIG, the huge U.S. insurer that lost billions in the risky business of insuring against bond defaults and became the latest victim of the historic financial turmoil that's engulfed Wall Street over the last year.
The crisis, a result of problems with souring mortgage debt and restricted credit, has already brought down Wall Street giants Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns. The two independent investment banks left standing — Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group — remained under scrutiny.
"It's a complete collapse of confidence," said Francis Lun, general manager of Fulbright Securities Ltd in Hong Kong. "The financial crisis in the U.S. is hitting everyone, everyone is running for cover. If the largest insurance company can fail, than no one is safe."
Oil had jumped overnight as investors fled equities to crude as a short-term safe haven amid global market unrest. After opening lower Thursday, light, sweet crude for October delivery was up 69 cents to $97.85 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by noon in Europe.
The euro surged higher to $1.4498 in European trading from the $1.4376 it bought in New York late Wednesday.
The British pound edged higher to $1.8217 from $1.8245, while the dollar bought 104.44 Japanese yen compared with 105.24 yen.
___
AP Business Writers Catrin Stewart in Moscow and Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong and Associated Press writers Tomoko Hosaka in Tokyo and Rohan Sullivan in Sydney contributed to this report.
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Welcome Dumo!!!
Grab a chair and stay, I think good things are coming for JAVA, and even On2. Went long on On2 a few days ago, but I transferred some money market funds---->technology fund (roth, coverdell).....let 'em ride.
Remember how to connect the dots?
Have fun.
Sun Microsystems Targets Next Generation of Developers With 2008-2009 World Tour of Popular Tech Days Conferences
Wednesday September 17, 9:17 am ET
Sun Selects Brazil as First Stop of 13-City Tour; Java Technology, MySQL and OpenSolaris at the Core of Conference Designed to Drive Open Sharing and Inspire Innovation
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA - News) today announced the details of the Sun Tech Days worldwide developer conferences for 2008-2009 at http://developers.sun.com/events/techdays/index.jsp. Sun Tech Days is a 13-city world tour designed to showcase how developers can leverage Sun technologies, services and products to drive the next generation of industry innovation. Since 2000, Sun Tech Days has seen a six-fold increase in attendance numbers and now reaches over 100,000 developers each year via multiple outreach programs, including over 30,000 'in-person' developers at the local events around the world.
Sun Tech Days are loaded with technical content, practical "how to" information, examples of real-world solutions, tips on application performance tuning, hands-on training and more. The theme for this year's Sun Tech Days program is “Next Generation Developers Drive Innovation” and the first event for 2008-2009 is in Sao Paulo, Brazil from September 29-October 1, 2008 http://www.suntechdays.com.br/std/. Jim Parkinson, vice president, Developer, Tools and Services at Sun will be the featured keynote. Kaj Arno, vice president of MySQL(TM) community relations for Sun's new Database Group will also be attending the event.
Each Tech Days event for 2008-2009 will be broken into four tracks:
Java & Social Computing: Innovations on the Java(TM) platform and social networking technology.
MySQL & Productivity: Web 2.0 development leveraging Sun's MySQL database, and productivity technology.
OpenSolaris(TM): Solaris(TM) innovations and application development for the IPS repository.
HOL: Hands on development with sessions on social computing, MySQL database, JavaFX(TM), OpenSolaris, NetBeans(TM) IDE and others.
The Tech Days program will also include:
Demo Showcase: Six demos highlighting JavaFX, mashups, social computing, OpenSolaris, PHP/NetBeans and cloud computing.
Lighting Talks: Content organized and delivered by community speakers around the different track topics.
In addition, some of the Sun Tech Days events will have an extra day of deep dive content where attendees can choose from either a dedicated advanced training session on the NetBeans IDE, highlighting new features and solutions or a targeted event for students illuminating challenges and opportunities with next generation technology innovation.
About Sun Tech Days
Sun Microsystems' premier global developer conference, Tech Days, travels the globe to share expertise with the community about the Solaris Operating System, Java technology, JavaFX, MySQL database, the NetBeans IDE, GlassFish(TM), OpenSolaris, Sun(TM) Studio software, scripting languages, mobile and telecommunications technologies, open source, web application development and more. Additional information is available at: http://developers.sun.com/events/techdays/index.jsp. Developers are also encouraged to join the Sun Developer Network Program, at no cost, by registering online at: http://developers.sun.com/register.
Sun Tech Days 2008-2009, A Worldwide Developer Conference
Sao Paulo, Brazil: September 29 - October 1, 2008
Seoul, South Korea: October 15-17, 2008
Taipei, Taiwan: November 17, 2008
Guangzhou, China: November 19, 2008
Beijing, China: November 21-23, 2008
Tokyo, Japan: December 2-4, 2008
Singapore, Singapore: January 20-22, 2009
New York, United States: February 6-7, 2009
Hyderabad, India: February 18-20, 2009
London, United Kingdom: March 25-27, 2009
Madrid, Spain: March 31 - April 2, 2009
St. Petersburg, Russia: April 8-10, 2009
Tel Aviv, Israel: May 5-7, 2009
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer"(TM) -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, JavaFX, Solaris, OpenSolaris, GlassFish, NetBeans, MySQL, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Contact:
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Jacki DeCoster, 415-294-4482
jacki.decoster@sun.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
VMware Buries the Competition
By Anders Bylund
September 17, 2008 Comment (0) Recommend (0)
JAVA
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
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When I opened up my virtual mailbox Monday morning, I was buried under an avalanche of press releases from virtualization specialist VMware (NYSE: VMW). Then the annual VMworld conference kicked off, adding heaps of fresh PR atop the first pile. After I dug my way out, one thing was abundantly clear to me: VMware won't sit still and let the likes of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: JAVA), and Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL) run circles around this incumbent market leader. This company hasn't exhausted its own research and inventions -- not by a long shot.
"Okay, tell us something we don't know."
The big deal that ties this news together is VMware's new Virtual Datacenter Operating System (VDC-OS). Think cloud computing on steroids, where an intrepid director of corporate IT can pool all hardware resources at his or her disposal into a giant blob of flexible computing power. Processor time, memory, network access, storage space, and other data-processing assets can then be assigned on demand to whatever application or project needs them the most -- automatically.
This is more than just a management suite for virtual machines, like Microsoft's Virtual Server or Sun's xVM product family. It's more like Amazon.com's (Nasdaq: AMZN) Elastic Computing Cloud or Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) famously decentralized information infrastructure, scaled down to the size of a single data center and packaged for private use by any company with IT-management problems. On the flipside of that analogy, it's like stretching a traditional IBM (NYSE: IBM) "big iron" mainframe, with all of its fault tolerance and massive parallel processing acumen, to cover the entire data center.
Used correctly, a solution like this should lead to significantly more efficient use of the available hardware, alongside higher reliability -- when one processor or memory bank dies, its workload just gets shifted somewhere else. That means better efficiency, longer uptime, and big cost savings.
Building a secure market share
VMware is years ahead of the competition when it comes to advanced features like this virtual OS functionality. Sure, I think that both Microsoft and Oracle have it in them to produce a product like this -- eventually. But by then, I expect that VMware will have carved out a very comfortable slice of the potential market, because the early adopters will be the companies that most need better IT management.
These tough test cases will iron out any remaining wrinkles in the solution in short order, via the normal back-and-forth of production-level tech support. Get them settled on a workable solution to problems like complex data management and scattershot hardware purchasing, and they won't feel any need to fix what ain't broke anymore. And then they become perfect marketing tools: "Look how we helped Hyper-Mega-Mart (Ticker: HMM) and Worst-Case Scenarios, Inc. (Ticker: NOWAY)! Your data center will be a walk in the park!"
What this means for you
I really don't see how even Mr. Softy can hope to find a chink in armor plating like that, though I do appreciate Microsoft's efforts, since competition drives innovation in any business. But in the end, virtualization will be an afterthought in Microsoft's and Oracle's sprawling product portfolios, at most. The same goes for Sun, albeit on a smaller scale. Anybody else in this space looks like shark bait to me -- fishing for buyout offers from one of the big boys, rather than aiming for the top of the heap themselves.
Meanwhile, VMware will keep leading the way to bigger and better virtualization achievements. This is one of the days I mutter curses at our Foolish disclosure policy under my breath, because it's the only thing keeping me from buying VMware today.
Further Foolishness:
Virtual News, Virtual Reality
Google Revs Up the App Engine
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Microsoft is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation. VMware and Google are Motley Fool Rule Breakers picks. Amazon.com is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor recommendation. Try any of our Foolish newsletters today, free for 30 days.
Fool contributor Anders Bylund owns a couple of Google shares but holds no other position in any of the companies discussed here, and holds no hard feelings for the cuts and bruises suffered in the information avalanche. You can check out Anders' holdings if you like, and Foolish disclosure is always a step ahead of the competition.
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Press Release Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems Discusses High Performance Computing and Business Innovation on BlogTalkRadio
Wednesday September 17, 3:27 pm ET
MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--This week's Innovation Insider, Sun's Internet Radio show, will feature Tony Warner, HPC Initiative Marketing Manager and Rich Brueckner, Community Manager for HPC Systems at Sun Microsystems.
These experts will be discussing the latest developments in high performance computing and the business innovations organizations can experience enabled through HPC.
Innovation Insider is a show on BlogTalkRadio from Sun Microsystems that features discussions with industry innovators on a variety of topics.
When:
9:00a.m.-10:00a.m. PDT, Thursday, September 18, 2008
Where:
Visit http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/sunradio/innovationinsider, dial in number for questions: (646) 478-3261.
Podcasts will be posted here after every show: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/sunradio/featured.aspx
About Tony Warner: Tony Warner is the HPC Initiative Marketing Manager for Sun Microsystems. Tony is a veteran Sun employee having been with the company for over 21 years. In his time at the company he has held many positions from Field Engineering, to Training, to Technical Support, to Marketing and has been part of the team responsible for Sun's HPC marketing for the last 5 years.
About Rich Brueckner (AKA FlexRex): Rich Brueckner earns his living as Community Manager for HPC Systems at Sun Microsystems. When he's not managing Global Events, he keeps busy blogging on the Sun HPC Watercooler. You can also follow him on Twitter.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network is the Computer" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Contact:
Sun Microsystems
Russ Castronovo, 650-257-4460
russ.castronovo@sun.com
Margie Easter, 408-404-4708
margie.easter@sun.com
or
Bite Communications
Kristin Maverick, 415-365-0371
kristin.maverick@Bitepr.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Related On2 news/java/Hantro...cool stuff.
Press Release Source: On2 Technologies, Inc.
On2 Technologies Announces New High Definition Hardware Encoder IP
Tuesday September 9, 8:00 am ET
The Hantro(TM) 7280 enables real-time video encoding up to 1280x1024 resolution for low-power chipsets
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- On2 Technologies (Amex: ONT - News), the leader in video compression solutions, announced today the availability of the Hantro 7280 encoder Register Transfer Level (RTL) design. Supporting MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264 video, along with 16MP JPEG, the encoder is targeted for chipsets intended for devices with very low-power requirements such as: portable video cameras, mobile phones, remote security cameras, laptops and webcams. With a maximum resolution of 1280x1024 at 30 fps, the Hantro 7280 introduces a new level of performance and functionality.
Following the Hantro 6280, which was licensed by more than 15 leading chip manufacturers, the encoder brings further speed improvements to achieve resolutions up to 1280x1024 at 30 fps. Easily encoding full 720p H.264 at 30 fps in only 180 MHz clock frequency, the 7280 brings ultra-high performance to 65 nm and 90 nm low-power chipsets. Placing a CPU load of less than 1MHz, the Hantro 7280 allows even an entry level ARM9-based chipset to encode real-time HD H.264 video with plenty of headroom to spare. The new encoder also incorporates proprietary image stabilization technology which reduces the effects of camera shake prior to encoding resulting in higher quality video with better compression.
Optimized for rapid integration with ARM, MIPS and other embedded CPU and DSP cores, the Hantro 7280 marries high performance with ultra low-power and efficient silicon utilization. Silicon area can be further optimized for unique applications by selecting only the formats and screen resolutions required with area reduced to as small as 0.19 square millimeters per 139,000 gates. Additional area savings can be gained in a full codec solution by sharing internal memories with the Hantro 8190 multi-format decoder.
"For portable devices, battery-life is a critical success factor and manufacturers seek to optimize in every aspect," says Eero Kaikkonen, Chief Marketing Officer at On2. "The 7280 requires only 12 mW to encode VGA H.264 in real-time. Although in practice it is not possible, theoretically an ARM 11 would require as much as 500mW to achieve the same performance."
The Hantro 7280 is available now for licensing from On2. The product comes complete with RTL source code for VHDL or Verilog, an RTL test bench and test data, ANSI C driver source code and complete technical documentation. For further information please contact On2 at sales@on2.com.
About On2 Technologies
On2 creates advanced video compression technologies for desktop and wireless. Powering the video in many of today's leading web and mobile applications and devices, companies using On2's technologies include: Nokia, Infineon, Sun Microsystems, Mediatek, Sony, Facebook, Brightcove, Move Networks, Adobe and Skype. On2 Technologies is headquartered in Clifton Park, NY USA. For more information please visit www.on2.com
Trademarks mentioned in this release are the property of their respective owners.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: On2 Technologies, Inc.
Connecting dots in tech stocks...
From On2 board,
http://www.etmag.com/publication/magazine/2008/08/pages/024.html
Thanks, again kujo.
Good luck.
Dell shares sink on warning about weak demand
Tuesday September 16, 8:08 pm ET (AP)
By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer
Dell sinks to lowest levels in 7 years on warning that demand weakening in current quarter
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Hurting from price cuts and an expensive restructuring, Dell Inc. rattled investors Tuesday with another warning, this time that corporate spending on technology is weakening further.
By most measures, the technology sector has been chugging along fine, which is why Dell's announcement caused uncertainty about whether the problem is specific to Dell or indicates broader problems in the market.
The revelation caused Dell's shares to fall $2.01, 11 percent, to $15.98 -- their lowest level since September 2001 -- and dragged down other technology companies' stocks, including Sun Microsystems Inc., whose shares fell 4 percent, and IBM Corp., whose shares dipped in early trading but rebounded.
A big part of Dell's problems stem from its poor competitive position in growth markets outside the U.S., and are not necessarily representative of troubles that will hit other companies as severely, analysts said.
While Dell rivals like Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. are also feeling the downturn, they're able to absorb it better because of their broader geographic reach, higher-profit products and breadth of offerings including services and software.
Dell sells mostly lower-end personal computers and servers based on personal-computer chips, areas with extreme pricing pressure.
Dell's announcement is proof that "in tougher markets, the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research.
"Things are definitely tougher, but they've been tough for the past year," he said. "The companies that aren't as well-positioned are going to have a harder time. I don't think HP or IBM are immune either, but they're much better positioned to withstand the storm."
Investors were worried that the technology sector, which has held up well and in some cases grown despite the economic turbulence, is due for a downturn after escaping a lot of the pain triggered by the crises in the credit and mortgage markets.
Some companies have actually ramped up spending on technology because they see ways to save money by outsourcing their computing chores and buying more energy-efficient servers and personal computers.
IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co., the two biggest tech companies, have kept impressing Wall Street with better-than-expected results, fueled by increased spending overseas but also a weak dollar that boosts the value of foreign transactions.
In contrast, Dell said "conservatism" in information-technology spending, which hurt its results for the quarter that ended Aug. 1, has deepened during the current period and led to "further softening in global end-user demand."
Dell's chief financial officer, Brian Gladden, told a conference of financial analysts Tuesday that sales of servers and storage equipment to large corporations have been "a little more stable" than sales of personal computers. The bigger machines are attractive even in tough times because of their potential to improve productivity, he said.
Gladden said Dell's slowdown is broadly based, and not tied specifically to Dell's products or changes in its pricing. After slashing prices aggressively to enter new markets, Dell is pulling back and raising prices in some areas to improve profitability, a change that could turn off some customers.
Dell said the slowdown is being felt widely -- in the U.S., Western Europe and Asia. However, Dell, the world's No. 2 maker of PCs and its No. 3 server maker, gets about 80 percent of its revenue from businesses and government agencies, so its results are likely not indicative of consumer spending on computers.
In fact, in one potential indicator of consumer sentiment, electronics retailer Best Buy Co. reported Tuesday that its revenue rose 12 percent -- and the company specifically cited strength in sales of notebook computers.
"Computers are a high, high growth engine for us right now," Brian Dunn, Best Buy's chief operating officer, said in an interview.
More broadly, market-research firm IDC recently forecast that worldwide personal-computer shipments are expected to grow 15.7 percent in 2008 and that growth will stay in the double-digits through 2011.
Another sign of the health of the tech sector came Tuesday when Forrester Research raised its projections for information technology spending in the U.S. The market research firm now expects spending to grow 5.4 percent in 2008, up from its previous forecast of 3.4 percent growth.
Even so, Forrester vice president Andrew Bartels said Dell's announcement reflects broader pressures that could accumulate. "When you have Wall Street firms that lay off 20-, 30-, 40-thousand people, then you are going to have 20-, 30-, 40-thousand excess PCs," he said.
A notable exception to the uncertainty in Tuesday's trading was Hewlett-Packard, whose shares gained $3.08, 6.8 percent, to $48.41 on the company's plans for bigger-than-expected layoffs and cost savings connected to its acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp. HP said after the market closed Monday that it plans to cut 24,600 jobs over the next three years, nearly 8 percent of its work force.
Associated Press Writers Ashley Heher in Chicago and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report.
Investor's Business Daily
Financial Services Meltdown Puts Chill In Tech Sales Outlook
Tuesday September 16, 6:08 pm ET
J. Bonasia And Brian Deagon
The financial services meltdown could subtract a lot of sales from tech companies, which get 18% of their total U.S. revenue from that sector.
The most recent indicator of trouble came Tuesday from No. 2 PC maker Dell (NasdaqGS:DELL - News). In a statement, Dell said that "conservative" spending in the U.S. "had extended into Western Europe and several countries in Asia." The company made the same point 12ast month. The repeat sent Dell's shares falling 11.2% Tuesday.
Tech outsourcing firms based in India also are among those most feeling pain this week, because of their heavy exposure to the struggling U.S. financial sector.
Wall Street firms, banks and insurers are the single largest buyers of tech goods and services, and are expected to account for 18%, or $126 billion, of U.S. tech spending this year, says Forrester Research.
Projects Delayed
"The problems in the financial services sector will absolutely lead to a slowdown in tech spending," said Bill Whyman, tech analyst at research firm International Strategy & Investment. "Hardware purchases will be postponed, software upgrades will be postponed and customer projects will slow.
"This is not a time for (corporate customers) to take big risks. No big spending decisions will get made."
Besides Dell, other large tech firms that do a lot of business with financial services companies include IBM (NYSE:IBM - News), Sun Microsystems (NasdaqGS:JAVA - News) and EMC (NYSE:EMC - News), Whyman says.
Big tech firms have weathered the U.S. economy thanks to stronger economies overseas, but the slowdown has spread.
"Europe is clearly slowing," Whyman said.
Dell, on Tuesday and last month, did not specifically address the financial services, or any, market. But on May 29, in a conference call for its latest earnings, Dell's former chief financial officer, Don Carty, said, "Similar to Q4, we continue to see conservatism in the U.S., especially in the financial sector as well as state and local governments, and in the small and medium enterprise space."
IBM gets about a third of sales from financial services customers, but just 6% of that comes from the U.S., says Andrew Bartels, an analyst at Jupiter Research. IBM shares fell 3.2% on Monday but rose a fraction Tuesday, and remain up 7.4% for the year.
"IBM has some exposure and will feel some pain, but the bigger risk is what happens to the U.S. economy as a whole," Bartels said. "It's very likely we'll experience a recession in the second half of this year.
"The thing that will kill tech growth is not Wall Street, but it's one more straw on an already broken camel's back."
A Forrester survey this month of 950 senior tech managers in the U.S. and Europe found that 43% said their companies already had cut information technology budgets because of the slow global economy, and 49% of financial services firms had done so.
Outsourcing Revenue Down 31%
Forrester Tuesday said it sees a 2% decline in tech spending by U.S. financial services companies this year. It actually raised its outlook for total U.S. corporate IT spending this year to 5.4% from 3.4% -- down from 7.2% last year -- but it lowered its 2009 growth forecast to 6.1% from 9.4%.
Tech services firms based in India have long depended greatly on U.S. financial services clients. Most Indian tech services firms got started by writing software for U.S. banks, which still account for about 30% of their total revenue, says Joseph Foresi, a Janney Montgomery analyst.
The problems at Lehman Bros. (NYSE:LEH - News), Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER - News) and others have sent shock waves rippling through India.
"Outsourcing is suffering by financial institutions not spending money at the same levels as in prior years," Foresi said.
Total revenue for the Indian outsourcing market is down 31% this year, Gilford Securities analyst Ashish Thadhani wrote Monday in a research note.
Infosys Rebounds 4.6%
The "deepening global macroeconomic uncertainty" will hurt the "export-driven offshoring sector," he wrote.
Satyam Computer Services (NYSE:SAY - News) shares are down 39% since May 30, falling 14.4% on Monday alone. Patni Computer Systems (NYSE:PTI - News) is down 50% this year, including an 11.2% drop on Monday.
Infosys (NasdaqGS:INFY - News) is down 27% since May 30 even after rebounding 4.6% on Tuesday. Wipro Technologies (NYSE:WIT - News) stock has lost 30% since June 5 after rising 1.7% on Tuesday.
Still, the Indian tech service industry is resilient, Foresi says, pointing out that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ - News) and other U.S. giants are still moving more operations to India. The Indian tech services firms that make it through the current fallout could reward investors, he says.
"I'm not making excuses for these offshore companies, but nobody was expecting some of the largest U.S. financial institutions to go out of business," he said. Janney Montgomery has a buy rating on shares of Infosys, Satyam and outsourcing firms Cognizant Technology Solutions (NasdaqGS:CTSH - News) and Syntel (NasdaqGS:SYNT - News).
All Indian firms are suffering from guilt by association and not necessarily from exposure to actual bank failures, says Cowen & Co. analyst Moshe Katri.
"Everyone in this group is bundled together, whether we like it or not," said Katri.
Disruptions and uncertainty for U.S. financial markets are likely to delay some new software projects until the fourth quarter or next year, Katri says.
Still, he maintains buy ratings on Infosys, Wipro and Cognizant.
The stock of India's largest outsourcer, Tata Consultancy Services, doesn't trade on U.S. exchanges, but its shares were down 2% this week on India's National Stock Exchange.
"Incremental concerns around the financial services vertical (industry) are weighing on performance," Goldman Sachs analyst Julio Quinteros wrote in a note to investors on Monday.
The India-based outsourcers have benefited from currency exchanges of the Indian rupee against the weak U.S. dollar in recent years. But that trend has been reversed on the resurgence of the dollar this summer, notes Quinteros.
"Concerns around financial exposure and (currency effects) headwinds appear to be weighing" on the sector, he wrote.
Old Java News:
Sun Microsystems and VMware Expand Desktop Virtualization Relationship By Offering VMware Virtual Desktop Manager With Sun Ray Thin Clients
Tuesday September 16, 12:10 pm ET
Customers to Benefit From Increased Flexibility, Energy Efficiency and Choice for Virtual Desktop Deployments
LAS VEGAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:JAVA - News) today announced the company will add VMware Virtual Desktop Manager and VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to its line up of fully supported desktop virtualization solutions Sun offers to customers. As part of an expanded relationship between Sun and VMware, the new offerings from Sun bring more choice to Sun Ray(TM) thin client customers who now have the flexibility to select either the Sun Virtual Desktop Connector, a component of Sun VDI Software, or VMware Virtual Desktop Manager as their preferred connection broker for virtual desktop deployments. Sun will make VMware VDI and VMware Virtual Desktop Manager, along with support services for the products, available to customers via the Sun price list later this month. More information on the Sun Ray family of virtual display clients and software can be found at www.sun.com/sunray.
In addition to offering VMware VDI and VMware Virtual Desktop Manager, Sun Ray virtual display clients are now VMware Ready Certified for VMware VDI. The certification signifies that Sun Ray thin clients have passed VMware's testing criteria for interoperability and consistent quality performance when deployed in conjunction with VMware VDI and Virtual Desktop Manager. This is made possible through the new Sun Ray(TM) Connector for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager, an add-on component of Sun Ray(TM) Software, that provides tight integration and allows a highly-secure connection between Sun Ray thin clients and VMware Virtual Desktop Manager. With this joint solution, Sun Ray users can access and display virtual desktops based on Windows XP Professional, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.
“Enabling choice for our desktop virtualization customers is a paramount goal for Sun. Through our relationship with VMware, we're able to better deliver to customers a broad range of virtual desktop technologies that can be deployed to meet their specific VDI needs,” said Bob Gianni, senior director of desktop systems engineering at Sun. “Sun's innovative and industry-proven Sun Ray technology combined with VMware's popular, leading-edge Virtual Desktop Manager and VDI products offer a powerful choice for customers seeking to take advantage of the cost-savings, efficiency, and eco benefits of a thin client-based virtual desktop deployment.”
“Sun Ray thin clients and software, which feature Sun's high-performance Appliance Link Protocol(TM), are an attractive choice for organizations that deploy VMware VDI and Virtual Desktop Manager,” said Jerry Chen, senior director of enterprise desktop at VMware. “Adding the availability of VMware Virtual Desktop Manager with Sun Ray technology combines two best-of-breed technologies to offer an outstanding desktop virtualization solution for customers.”
Last year, SAP Netherlands moved its Educational Center to a new building and Sun Ray played a key role. “We wanted to ensure that we provided each student with their own system while keeping cooling costs down. Using Sun Ray technology, as opposed to traditional PCs, helped us to achieve this goal all while realizing the additional benefits of reduced administration costs and the increased efficiency and flexibility inherent to a thin client and virtual desktop deployment,” said Jean Paul Beerens, Expert Technical Support Consultant IT of SAP Netherlands. “Our current architecture, which includes Sun Ray virtual display clients, Sun Ray Server Software 4 running on the Solaris 10 Operating System, and VMware ESX Server Software for hosting Windows XP Pro, fits our needs perfectly. We're pleased to know that VMware and Sun are continuing to work together to offer new solutions that will help us improve our offering to students and meet new challenges.”
Sun Ray virtual display clients, Sun Ray Software and Sun VDI Software are key components of Sun's broad desktop virtualization offering, which are a set of core desktop technologies and solutions within the Sun(TM) xVM virtualization portfolio. Sun Ray thin clients offer a longer device life-cycle at a fraction of the cost and total power consumption of a traditional desktop PC and allow customers to display their choice of Solaris(TM), Windows or Linux virtual desktops.
Sun at VMworld 2008
Sun will showcase Sun Ray technology and its complete Sun xVM virtualization portfolio, from desktop to datacenter, at VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas, Sept. 15-19 in booth #1108. Sun will also lead two panels at VMworld 2008 including a session featuring Sun's leading virtualization experts on Thursday, Sept. 18 at 9 a.m. in the Titan conference room (#2305). A second session, hosted by Sun and titled “Virtualizing the Desktop”, will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 10 a.m. at the Marcello room (#4502).
Sun offers a complete desktop-to-datacenter virtualization product portfolio and comprehensive set of virtualization service offerings to help customers deploy new services faster, maximize the utilization of system resources, and more easily monitor and manage virtualized environments. Sun's virtualization products help to provide unified software management tools and virtualization capabilities across operating systems, servers, storage, desktops and processors. For more information visit www.sun.com/xvm.
About Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Sun Microsystems develops the technologies that power the global marketplace. Guided by a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer(TM)" -- Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.
Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Ray, Java, Appliance Link Protocol and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
VMware, VMworld and VMware Ready are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of VMware, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other jurisdictions.
Contact:
Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Dan Berthiaume, 415-294-3588 (Press)
press@sun.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Long-Shot Options Trader Doubts Lehman Rumors
Friday August 22 ByRebecca Engmann Darst, RealMoney.com Contributor
Shares in Lehman Brothers bounded sharply out of the gate today, up 13% to $15.51 on speculation of a possible takeover by Korea Development Bank. The move in Lehman comes a day after respected analyst Richard Bove floated the notion of Lehman's vulnerability to a hostile takeover bid given the dissonance between management and the market's view of the company's value, and amid generally bullish action in financials today on back of interest rate-dovish and largely reactive, rather than proactive, rhetoric from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke speaking in Jackson Hole, Wyo.
Response from option traders has been interesting, not least in the October contract, where a trader appears to have played against the "easy-fix" rumors by buying a long 8,870-lot put spread between strikes 2.50 and 5.00. This trade was entered for a 25-cent debit, creating an initial break-even of $4.75 - requiring an almost disastrous $10 drop. The trader stands to gain as much as $2.25 -- 9 times the money at risk -- if Lehman shares make a cataclysmic drop but don't break below the $2.50 level. Given that options are pricing in only about a 3% chance of Lehman shares dropping below $5 by Oct. 17 -- and virtually no chance of a bust of $2.50 -- it's clear that this trader is using this 25-cent position as a long-shot wager.
In another October play in Lehman, traders may have sold 27-strike calls at 22 cents apiece in order to fund a long collar between strikes 12.50 and 20 -- a protective play on an underlying stock position that would otherwise cost 33 cents to put on. In this case, the trader would have bought the put at the 12.50 strike and sold the call at 20, with that short call declaring a limit to any upside in which this trader can participate. This too would seem to suggest a very muted outlook for Lehman shares, even if a bid is forthcoming.
Elsewhere, we observed a few large-scale call-side trades in tech stocks. Options activity in Sun Microsystems -- trading 0.60% higher at $10.00 -- caught our attention, as a trader bought an 11,000-lot long call position at the January 12.50 line for 53 cents. About an hour later, a trader sold a 10,000-lot position in 12.50 puts for $2.90. Both of these strategies may be interpreted as bullish on the underlying share price, as Sun shares have not traded at this level since June.
We observed similar call-side position in Dell . Shares are down 0.48% at $25.09, but they've perked up some 38% since bottoming out on April 14. Roughly half of today's active volume in Dell options is centered in January 30 calls, where 10,000 lots traded to the middle of the market at 67 cents. Based on the premiums paid, we're surmising that the calls were bought in a bullish wager that Dell would see shares back at levels not seen since October 2007.
Shares in Warren Buffett favorite Coca-Cola are up 1.3% to $54.20, pacing gains in the Dow today. Murmurings of a global slowdown in recent sessions have sparked some market investors to call for positioning away from large multinationals with heavy European exposure, and option activity over the past week has shown some signs of traders positioning more defensively in December/January contracts in some multinational names.
It's in this light that the action in Coca-Cola is interesting, as it appears a trader entered a 7,000-lot calendar put spread, selling 50-strike puts in the January 2010 for $4.00 and buying the same position in the January '09 contract for $1.60. Along with a $2.40 initial credit, the trader gets some defensive cover against a 7% pullback between now and mid-January.
Sun Microsystems Signs Three Year Outsourcing Deal With Exigen Services
Tuesday August 12
Distributed Agile Expertise Set Provider Apart From 23-Vendor RFP Pool
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(MARKET WIRE)--Aug 12, 2008 -- Exigen® Services, the leading next generation application outsourcing provider, today has announced a multi-year application development and maintenance outsourcing deal with IT giant, Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA). Under the terms of the agreement, Exigen Services will provide application development and maintenance services for a portfolio of products in Sun's Services division.
Sun Microsystems chose Exigen Services for their unique approach to creating a true partnership with customers, and their industry-recognized expertise with Agile development methodologies such as SCRUM and eXtreme Programming (XP). "Our ability to exploit Agile development methodologies in partnership with Exigen gives us an edge as we develop and maintain Sun's products," said Tae Kim, Senior Director - Services Engineering, Sun Microsystems Inc. "We are looking forward to a true partnership with Exigen Services."
"We're excited to be invited to support Sun and be part of their world-class organization," said Alex Adamopoulos, general manager and senior vice president, Exigen Services. "Partnership with customers is our main objective, with a successful track record we're proud of."
Closed down again today, Hawkeye.
...sigh
Ouch....again.
Sun 4Q profit falls 73 pct, beats view
Friday August 1, 9:26 am ET By Jordan Robertson, AP Technology Writer
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Sun Microsystems Inc.'s profit plunged 73 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter as slumping sales to big U.S. companies and restructuring charges weighed on the server and software maker. The results reported Friday still beat Wall Street's muted forecast, though some investors remain wary of Sun's prospects considering its heavy reliance on the turbulent U.S. market, which makes up about 40 percent of its sales.
Those fears have been reflected in Sun's steadily declining stock, which has fallen 50 percent since the company's 1-for-4 reverse stock split in November. The maneuver was supposed to improve Sun's image, but instead seemed like a sign of trouble.
In a sign that Sun believes its shares are undervalued, the company also revealed Friday that it's expanding its stock buyback program by $1 billion. Sun has already completed the bulk of a $3 billion buyback program announced a year ago.
The world's fourth-largest server maker, Sun has cut about 6,500 workers over the past two years as it struggled to climb out of a deep financial hole the company fell into after the dot-com meltdown.
The results for the April-June period mark the Santa Clara-based company's sixth profitable quarter out of the last seven periods. Much of Sun's gains, however, have come from its cost-cutting efforts, which has led to concerns about the company's ability to continue improving its profitability once the effects of those cuts wear off.
Sun earned $88 million, or 11 cents per share, in the latest quarter. That was a penny better than the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial. That compares with $329 million, or 36 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Sales were $3.78 billion, a 1 percent decline from $3.84 billion last year. That matched analyst estimates.
Still clicking Down here......
GLA.......
JAVA Short Interest
Jun 13 May 30 % Chg
Sun Microsystems, Inc. 57,147,253 24,739,335 131.00
Geez, let's hope so, Hawkeye.
I have a lot of patience but it's wearing thin...hearing the same old story year after year is tiresome.
Still losing $$$, maybe they will cut enough heads this
time to right size to climb back.....
Hawk
They just can't seem to get it together.
From CNBC:
Sun Microsystems [JAVA 12.57 -3.76 (-23.03% ] dropped about 20 percent as several brokerages downgrade the stock and cut their price targets following the company's unexpected loss and decline in quarterly revenue.
I always thought highly of Sun Microsystems and do have some of their stock. I was wondering if a reverse split was good or bad? What would be the reason for doing such a thing? Sorry for the noob question. thanks! :)
Sun reaffirms fiscal 2008 revenue growth forecast
Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:45pm EST
MENLO PARK, Calif, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA) on Wednesday reaffirmed its forecast for revenue growth in the low- to mid-single digit percentage range in its current fiscal year.
Growth is being fueled by demand for Sun's high-end server computers and technology services outside the United States, Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Schwartz told journalists at a briefing in Menlo Park, California.
Chief Financial Officer Mike Lehman also reiterated a forecast for revenue growth of at least 5 percent in Sun's fiscal second half ending in June. He also affirmed an earlier projection of reaching gross profit margins of 45 percent to 47 percent in the current 2008 fiscal year.
LOL VV, It shoulda happened a long time ago, IMO!
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Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision - "The Network is The Computer" - has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: JAVA) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software, and services that make the "Net" work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web.
For the latest news, current and historic financial information, stock split FAQ and other investor
information on Sun Microsystem, check Sun's Company page at:
http://www.sun.com/company/
RECENT NEWS!
Sun Micro shareholders approve 1-for-4 reverse stock split
JAVA said Thursday that it's shareholders approved a 1-for-4 reverse stock split that will take effect Nov. 12.
Sun will exchange one new share of the company's stock for every four shares that its shareholders currently own.
A Sun spokeswoman said the move will not impact the market value of Sun as a whole,
but that the share price may move up or down after the reverse split takes effect. (Duh!!)
Sun Microsystems, Inc. provides network computing infrastructure solutions worldwide. It offers its solutions under the Java technology platform, the Solaris Operating System, the MySQL database management system, Sun StorageTek storage solutions, and the UltraSPARC processor names. The company also develops networking computing products and technologies that include servers, storage, open source software, tools, services, and training. It offers servers, such as entry server systems, and enterprise and data center servers based on SPARC64, UltraSPARC, AMD Opteron, and Intel Xeon microprocessors; desktops; data storage products and services, including libraries, drives, virtualization systems, media, and software; and disk system products comprising data center disks, network attached storage, enterprise archive system, midrange disks, workgroups disks, a boot disk, and disk device software, as well as develops and sells silicon-based chips that facilitate networking, cryptography, and high-performance computing. The company?s software offerings primarily comprise enterprise infrastructure software systems, software desktop systems, developer software, and infrastructure management software. In addition, Sun Microsystems offers component products, such as central processor unit chips and embedded boards on an original equipment manufacturer basis; and supplies after-market and peripheral products. Further, it offers support and managed services for hardware, software, and client solutions, as well as provides professional and educational services. The company?s solutions are used in search, social networking, entertainment, financial services, manufacturing, healthcare, retail, news, energy, and engineering companies. It has strategic alliances and partnerships with Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.; Fujitsu; Intel Corporation; and Hitachi Data Systems. The company was founded in 1982 and is based in Santa Clara, California. |
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